GDL Law Notes GDL Equity and Trusts Notes
A collection of the best GDL notes the director of Oxbridge Notes (an Oxford law graduate) could find after combing through many applications from mostly first class students and carefully evaluating each on accuracy, formatting, logical structure, spelling/grammar, conciseness and "wow-factor". In short these are what we believe to be the strongest set of GDL notes available in the UK this year. You'll notice that we include several different authors' worth of notes. The first is our 2017 author...
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Formalities: Equitable title
Constitution: Legal Title
Concerned with constitution during lifetime (as constitution takes place under the will upon death)
Milroy v Lord:
Methods appropriate to transferring different types of property
Methods of conferring the benefit of property on people set down:
An outright gift
A transfer on trust – with someone else as the trustee (transfer on trust)
Self-declaration of trust – settlor declares himself as trustee
That equity will not perfect an imperfect gift
5 main types of property:
Chattels – pure personal – you can do it formally – but you don’t have to: intention/delivery (informal transfer)
Shares: Shares in a private company:
Must execute a stock transfer form - s1, Stock Transfer Act 1963
Must send it with the old share certificate to the company – where registrar of the company will register the new shares (unless exemption in Articles)
(Shares in public companies: CREST system)
Copyright: S90(3), Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Bank Account: A Bank Account = a debt – creditor/debtor relationship – chose in action – if you want to transfer the benefit – s1376 Law of Property Act – signed, written notice to the debtor (the bank)
Land: s52, LPA 1925 – by deed
deed defined in s1 LP(MP)A 1989:
Written
Signed
Witnessed
Headed deed
Delivered
Methods of Benefiting Another:
Legal Interests:
Outright gift
Transfer on trust
Self-declaration of trust
Equitable interests:
4 types from Timpson’s Executors v Yerbury (Above)
Failure to constitute – Ineffectual transfer
The Principle
Equity will not assist a volunteer - A volunteer is someone who doesn’t provide any consideration – doesn’t give anything in return
Equity will not perfect an imperfect gift
Equity will not treat a failed gift as a self-declaration of trust
Application:
If as in Milroy v Lord – settlor intends to create a settlement by transfer but fails to vest legal title in the trustees – then equity will not perfect
If donor intended absolute gift – but failed to effectively transfer the property – equity will not construe the failed absolute gift (method 1) as a declaration of trust (method 3)
Jones v Lock – Jones returned home without a present for his baby so produced a cheque payable to himself and said ‘I give this to baby; it is for himself’ – he died shortly afterwards – but as he had not endorsed the cheque to his son – the property had not been transferred – courts rejected argument that he had declared himself a trustee of the cheque
Richards v Delbridge – grandfather endorsed on his lease a memorandum saying ‘this deed and all thereto belonging I give to Edward (a minor) from this time forth’ – he later died – held that lease hadn’t been legally assigned (needs to have a separate deed) – and couldn’t be construed as a declaration of trust because he had intended an absolute gift
Paul v Constance – contrast to above cases: effective declaration of trust found because of sufficient intention on the part of Constance to make himself a trustee of the money in the account
Shah v Shah –CA construed a letter referring to transfer of shares as a declaration of trust of the shares, rather than a gift
Unless an exception applies:
Rule in Re Rose
Rule in Strong v Bird
Donatio Mortis Causa
Proprietary Estoppel
Choithram v Pagarani
Pennington v Waine
THE EXCEPTIONS:
Transfer Effectual in Equity
Re Rose: A Transferor has done all in his power
A gift of shares: S1 Stock Transfer Act – stock transfer form needs to be sent with old share certificates to the company for registration
This was done – but she died before registration had happened: legal title was not completed in lifetime and there was no mention of them in the will so under Milroy v Lord: shares would go into her residue
CA: if you have (1) Used the correct methods (2) Done all that he/she can (3) Put the matter beyond his control then the transfer will be effective
Delay here was caused by the company: no fault on the part of the donor
Mascall v Mascall : principle will also apply where all the relevant documentation has been given to the donee/trustee:
Transfer of land: executed deed and gave everything necessary to the son
Son hadn’t sent it to the land registry yet – so legal transfer not yet transferred
But father had put it beyond his control so equity stepped in
Re Fry: still more the transferor needed to do: was domiciled abroad and had not obtained Treasury consent (as required by statute at the time) and died before it was obtained: transfer was ineffective
Zeital v Kaye: handed over a share transfer form signed by the registered shareholder but had not handed over the share certificate: CA held that he had not done everything in his power to transfer the shareholding
Pennington v Waine: under narrow circumstances there will be no legal requirement for the form to be delivered to the donee or the company
Donor told Mr Pennington (partner in the Company’s auditors), two months before her death, that she wished to immediately transfer 400 shares to her nephew: signed share transfer form and gave it to Mr P who placed it on his file but took no further action, and told her to ‘do nothing’
Donee was informed of the gift
Donor also informed donee that she wanted him to become director (needed at least 1 share): form of consent, took on benefits/burdens of...
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A collection of the best GDL notes the director of Oxbridge Notes (an Oxford law graduate) could find after combing through many applications from mostly first class students and carefully evaluating each on accuracy, formatting, logical structure, spelling/grammar, conciseness and "wow-factor". In short these are what we believe to be the strongest set of GDL notes available in the UK this year. You'll notice that we include several different authors' worth of notes. The first is our 2017 author...
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